HSOB015: DAVID BERNABO DB IN COLLEGE

HSOB018: THE REDUCTION (PERFORMANCE FILM)

Four dancers, three camera persons, and a musician perform The Reduction, an evening-length dance piece that attempts to alter time, the role of the performer, and the role of the audience. Featuring choreographer David Bernabo, bassist Darin Gray, dancers Ru Emmons, JoAnna Dehler, Lauryn Petrick, and narrator Lenka Clayton. (Released 4/25/2017)

This work is both a culmination of 14 years of work in music, art, film, and dance and the first attempt to combine those efforts into a formal theater work. This work deals with various layers of realities, simulations, and perspectives. We are looking at how context, time, and positioning alters how an image, an action, or a sound is interpreted. By using improvisation, use of shared choreography generation, non-performer interference, we are looking at definitions of authenticity and ownership, controls within systems, and how formal considerations within “theater” can extend into the “real” world.

So, The Reduction is scored for four dancers, three camerapersons, and one musician. Our three camerapersons are Heather Mull, Mario Ashkar, and Stephanie Tsong.

If we take it back to 2007, that's when I met Heather Mull. Heather photographed me jumping from a wicker chair in the Woolslayer Way alley/street outside of my previous dwelling. The photo was for the 2007 City Paper City Guide. Heather has worked for City Paper for a while also freelancing for Table Magazine, Pittsburgh Magazine, Keystone Edge, CMU, Quantum Theater, and a bunch of others. Heather has a great eye for composition and color - there are a number of wonderful photographs from her invovlement in the Kliptown Photography Project. Heather was gracious enough to perform in MODULES 10, which was performed at Wood Street Galleries as a MODULES dance for solo dancer and three camerapersons. I'm very excited to see what develops (pun somewhat intended, but also not quite accurate) at Thursday's performance. Here are a few photos from Heather:

Mario Ashkar is one of the more active people I know. Video work, photography, event promotion. I met Mario at the first Lightlab event that choreographer/dancer/musician Taylor Knight and I created. Was that 2013? Mario presented a video called DESIGNING WOMEN-A PHOTO LECTURE, which was part video screening and performance/lecture. Mario has created a lot of work with the moon baby and slowdanger and a number of music videos and films. Here are a few recent pieces from Mario.

The third installment in a series with Pittsburgh art gallery and residency BUNKER Projects that both documents the installation work of artists and allows for new narratives to form from the works. Traffic, an installation piece from Andrew Hieronymi, is reimagined in this short and brought to life through movement by Grace Byrne and music from Slowdanger available at https://slowdanger.bandcamp.com/.

A bit of NSFW in this next one:

And now, the very near past. Designer/illustrator/photograher Stephanie Tsong and I met at this year's MakerDate fundraiser for Assemble Gallery. I believe we talked a lot about film at the event and had a follow-up conversation about tools for editing video. Stephanie has a large body of work that spans etchings, silkscreen, lithograph, sketchbook, and photography (you know, with film). Here are a few great pieces:

One of the great things about creating work is collaboration, and Pittsburgh is a very welcoming place for collaboration. I've worked on a number of projects where I meet a person and start up a collaboration and then a month later there is another collaboration and a tree of work forms. So, thank you to the three people above for lending their talents and interest to this project!

So, our first performance of The Reduction is fast approaching. I'd like to take a bit of time to talk about the piece and the people involved in its creation. I thought I would start with the person that I have known the longest, bassist and all-around great person, Darin Gray.

You may have seen/heard Darin recently as the bassist in TWEEDY, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and son and friends, or his work in Chikamorachi with drummer Chris Corsano, or various shows with saxophonist Akira Sakata, Jim O'Rourke, Tyler Damon, and, of course, his duo with Glenn Kotche called On Fillmore.

On March 8, 2003, I met Darin at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. It appears that the internet can back this up. I was playing keys in the Pittsburgh band, Boxstep, and we were sharing a bill with On Fillmore. Azita, whose recent-at-the-time album I really loved, was headlining the evening. I remember Boxstep guitarist Daryl Fleming and I being really into Azita's set because there were traces of Steely Dan chording somewhere in there. Anyway, I knew of On Fillmore from Tim Barnes' Quakebasket label, but also knew of Darin and Glenn from the Jim O'Rourke Drag City records. I want to say that at that time, Tim had released their wooden box record and possibly the first non-box CD, which may have been split-released with Locust Records. (I could run upstairs to check, but I like not knowing everything. Also, the internet is a great place for wandering truths.)

Anyway, the On Fillmore set was wonderful! If I remember correctly, it was kit, vibraphone, and upright bass with no field recordings. Very rhythmic. Repetative. Shifting time signatures. Wonderful stuff. On Fillmore has since released a few more records, all wonderful, evolving, great sounding works. On the album, Extended Vacation, there is an Ives-ian sequence where a marching band crashes into the human birdcalls and dark vibes/bass. For that record, the duo played the Warhol Museum, and while I was out of town, we recorded an interview that is still online. Later on, they also toured with Radiolab, providing sound for forty shows.

So, when I proposed The Reduction to the New Hazlett Theatre, it seemed like a good time to see if a collaboration was possible. As it turns out, it was! As with much of the show, I do not want to give much away, but here is a photo of preparations for the sound.

Darin has the ability to change his sound from project to project, but there are qualities that transcend the genre or the group. His playing is fully committed, and that commitment allows the music to really be something special.

Here are some of my favorite clips of a few of his projects and collaborations. For further listening, I would recommend Darin's solo album, St. Louis Shuffle, Jim O'Rourke's Insignificance, Brise-Glacé'sWhen in Vanitas (sooo good!), Grand Ulena'sGateway to Dignity.

Loren MazzaCane Connors & Darin Gray live at Monroe County Public Library in Bloomington, Indiana on March 4, 2000. A CD of this concert was released as "This Past Spring" on Family Vineyard, May 24, 2001. Filmed by CATS (Community Access Television Services).

A beautiful section from the Radiolab piece by On Fillmore with Sarah Lipstate from Noveller.

I'm really into the new Tweedy record. There is a great consistency in the songwriting, the production is cool, and I really like the live shows. Here's one of the live shows.